Word: iowa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Coming so soon after the May 25 tornado in the northeastern Iowa town of Parkersburg that killed seven people and injured about 50, the June 11 tornado in western Iowa at the Boy Scout camp made me want to shake my fists at the heavens. But there's no time for fury. There's work to be done...
...feel under siege with this weather," my friend Anne e-mailed this week, after reassuring me that her 15-year-old son was not among the Boy Scouts at an Iowa campground that was flattened by a tornado a few days ago. It was hard to react to that unfathomable tragedy - four teenagers killed, 48 people wounded - with the can-do stoicism that many Iowans have mustered in response to the sinking realization that yet another so-called "500-year flood" is slowly but surely swamping our state - just 15 years after the last...
Right now, it's all about trying to prevent more flooding that is already devastating many communities, from Iowa's second largest city, Cedar Rapids (pop. 124,000), to one of its smallest, Chelsea (pop. 276). Later, it will be about dealing with the aftermath - the nasty consequences of flood water that Iowans remember all too well from the miserable clean-up of homes, businesses, and farms after the floods...
...they filled sandbags, some people shared updates, about conditions in various parts of Des Moines, Polk County and Iowa. For days, we Iowans have been comparing notes, sharing stories of water-soaked basements, flooded-out cars, water bursting out of manhole covers. We've been reminiscing, not fondly, about the flood of 1993 - when Des Moines lost its water supply for days (something we've been assured won't happen again, thanks to beefed-up flood prevention measures...
...flood zones, evacuation orders, and road closures (including portions of Interstate 80); looking at wrenching images of flood scenes near and far: a woman crying on her Des Moines doorstep as she's told to evacuate; a couple row-boating through their mobile home park in Altoona; an Iowa City police officer wading through water with a little boy on his shoulders; an astonishing aerial view of downtown Cedar Rapids where downtown buildings look like rafts in an ocean. But mostly, my fellow sandbaggers work quietly, diligently, steadily, shoveling sand, filling bags, heaving them into piles and hoping...